SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 – (Cont.) I was ecstatic but perplexed. The big kids at home had ample space to “deal with” their catches—a stretch of sand, a patch of grass, terra firma on which to lay the fish and work the hook out of its mouth. But a bass flopping around inside a net on the floor of the rowboat?
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Given our short distance back to port, Dad decided to row straight back and wrestle the fish on land—evidence, I guessed, that if Dad was an expert at lots of things, fishing was not one of them.
Once the boat was back in the cradle, all hell broke loose. The bass thrashed up a storm. Dad grabbed the pole in one hand and the net-with-flopping-fish in the other. Rather than deal with the fish on the narrow dock, Dad climbed out of the boat and raced up the wooden steps toward the level ground by the boat box. Suddenly he stumbled. His right knee smashed the handle of the fishing rod.
“Ah, nuts!” he said, continuing to the top of the steps.
After considerable commotion involving separation of hook from fish and Grandpa taking the fish from there (for cleaning, filleting, and eventually, cooking), I heard Dad muttering to my grandparents his self-directed anger for having stumbled and broken my birthday present—“The one that Eric had so looked forward to and had made him so happy.” An expressible sadness came over me, as I heard Dad’s disappointment.
I couldn’t hold back the tears. Embarrassed, I ran from the inside of the cabin and made a beeline for the cot on the front porch, where I tried to hide my sadness. Seconds later Grandpa found me . . . not to console me, which I didn’t want him to do, but to scold me, which I hadn’t expected him to do.
“You shouldn’t cry over such a thing,” he said gruffly. “Your dad works so hard for you and your family. He puts up with all sorts of things so you and your sisters and your mother can have a nice life—a much better life than I had when I was your age. And then he goes out and gets you a nice birthday present and accidentally breaks it. By your age you should have more understanding and appreciation for your dad.”
I stopped crying. I wanted to explain to Grandpa that he’d gotten it all wrong. But I didn’t. Scowling, he left the porch. At the time, I didn’t know the word for what I’d just discovered, but in time, the word would be learned: irony.
Over the next few years, I fished a lot in Grindstone. I never learned much, never caught anything, and eventually lost interest. As regards my wife’s judgment of my self-proclaimed fishing expertise, I guess I’ve learned another word: truth.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
